


Together

by the_blue_fairie



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Gen, snow sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_blue_fairie/pseuds/the_blue_fairie
Summary: They promised each other they would do this together. A rewrite of the moment in F2 when Elsa heads to the Dark Sea alone.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Together

_“I just don't want you dying, trying to be everything for everyone else too.”_

Elsa had been girding herself in armor – an armor of the spirit, wrought as if of her hardest ice. She had to go on alone – like a warrior-queen upon the whale-road, arm outstretched to the carven serpent gazing out to sea.

(She thought of the dragon-ship splitting, the warrior-queen sinking, thought of her parents’ ship mere feet away, a path along the whale-road, a path to follow…)

_Trying to be everything for everyone else too._

(The warrior-queen sinking in the weight of her armor, dark water flowing through, no coffin, save this one, this metal tomb, suffocating... Scratch open the tomb with bleeding nails and it is no matter… the water still chokes…)

(For you, Anna. I’m doing this for you. And for Olaf. And for the Northuldra. And for Arendelle. And for… myself.)

(For myself…)

(Then why did her heart feel halved – like the poisoned apple in the old tale, one side white as snow, white as a skull, the other bleeding red?)

(The white side was safe to eat – not poisoned – but its safety was all guile, to tempt to taste the red…)

(The poison bled throughout.)

She wanted to push onward.

Needed to push onward.

Wanted, needed bled together. Wantedneededwantedwantedneededneeded.

She was proud of herself in some strange way, proud of what she might accomplish…

At the same moment, she did not value her own life.

Why did the vision inspired by pride (I can do this, I want to do this) and the vision inspired by self-hatred (I need to do this, if I die it will little matter, as long as Anna is safe) both end in self-annihilation?

Why did the girding of armor, proud image as that might have been, forebode death?

Visions.

Images.

She had lost herself in Images when Life stood before her – Life with flushed and anguished face and flowing hair of fire.

Anna was Life.

Tangible. Human.

Fraying at the seams.

Anna was in pain.

Pulsing like a sputtering candle.

Anna was hurting, trying to coat her face in white to hide the poison of her pain, but the white was smearing, the apple-red bleeding, the white cracking like bloodshot veins…

_“I can’t lose you, Elsa.”_

Elsa gathered Anna in her arms – and the ghost of what she felt she must do to keep Anna and Olaf both safe died in her.

There was another way.

Elsa swallowed hard, her throat dry, struggling to speak, fraying at the seams herself.

It was hard to speak, to express her love in a way that she felt conveyed the depth of it, the depth she hoped Anna could feel now, so she simply held Anna close, held her and did not let her go. Never let her go.

“I can’t lose you either, Anna.”

Elsa’s voice trembled with anxiety.

“I just – want to protect you – to keep you safe – and I know that – that sounds like… like before… like what I said in the past… but I… I… I can’t see you ending up like mama and papa, I just… I can’t… The Dark Sea took them, I can’t let it take you…”

“And you, Elsa? What about you?”

Anna’s voice was naked with pain, the skin of the apple torn away by teeth, the flesh fearfully pulsing.

“I… I…” Elsa choked on her words as though taking in great lungfuls of water, cracking, curling inward.

No, not _I_. Not now. Not when two _I_ s stood like parallel lines, like the patterns upon the front of her door. _We_. _We_. _We_.

No talking over one another in desperation.

_We both know best._

_Both of us._

“You won’t lose me, Anna. I promise. You won’t. I’m sorry, I’ve been so – determined – to find the answers, I’ve been reckless – and you’ve been hurting and I see your pain, Anna, I see your pain and I’m sorry.”

Elsa held Anna close, drew Olaf into the hug.

Anna trembled, her whole body taut from days and days on the edge, days and days being strong, days and days holding this family together because siren-songs and spectral fogs insidious were… Anna trembled and settled into the hug, letting the hot tears spill to mingle with Elsa’s own…

“I never meant to shut you out again, Anna. Not in any way. These days… these days have just been so fraught. I’m sorry that in them you’ve felt excluded, felt like… like you’ve had to be the big sister out of fear of me going too far… But at the same time, the Dark Sea is dangerous – and I have faith in my ability. I know you believe in me, so I ask you this – hold onto that faith and let me go on.”

Anna’s body tensed again. Elsa cupped her sister’s face in her hands and gazed into her eyes.

“We do this together, like you said,” Elsa continued softly. “I’ll send you word when I have answers. I swear that I shall. We do this together. Truly together. Not through the happenstance of fate but through mutual understanding. And if the worst should happen to me… I know you’ll be able to finish what I could not. _I believe in you, Anna, more than anyone or anything._ ”

_We have faith in each other._

_Two shards of a broken thing coming together to form a whole._

_Healing._

_Understanding._

“Together,” Anna whispered, and hugged Elsa tightly. “Protect yourself, Elsa.”

“I will. I love you,” Elsa whispered. “I may have powers, Anna, but you you’re stronger than them, in so many ways. I love you.”


End file.
